Western fiction shattered but not wiped out

Here I am. Settled at last in Boulder,Colorado. Time to begin blogging again. Time to clarify these new surroundings. Boulder has me buffaloed. So, here are my thoughts.

A Definition of Boulder, Colorado

It is a place where there’s a lot of sex going on.

A place where you can quickly cross the street after you punch the big silver button and the little white-man figure lights up. A safe crossing place. A place with too many cars. A place where everyone rides a bicycle. A place where exhaust fumes are so potent so you can’t walk along the sidewalk on Arapahoe Ave. A place of dizziness. A scary place.

It is a place of green. Fresh green trees. Summer shade. Where noxious weeds are the battle ground, not Afganistan.

A place where the newspaper is called a camera.

It’s a place where the language has strange words that begin with “eco.” Ecodoggiebag. Ecoefficient. Ecogreenoffice. Ecologic. Econatural. Ecofuture. Ecohandyman, ecoarts, ecochange, ecogreen.

A place where my dog can poop on the floor of McGuckins Hardware Store and no one gets angry. A place where I can’t shop because my dog is the attraction, not me, the customer. In this place there are many Golden Labs. Outside of this place there are horses.

A young place. There are no old people. A place with no gray hairs, white hairs, or blue hairs. They are sent to Arizona or Florida.

The place is terrifying. Where I worry about death by a bicycle racing along Boulder Creek Bike Path. Along the path floods rage. Soggy wet sleeping bags and undergarments lay in fearsome dark places abandoned in the mud along the Creek.

I always thought Boulder would be a neat place to live, but that’s looking back twenty, thirty years ago when we used to vacation in Colorado. Maybe Loveland or another nearby town would suit you better.